AGING
Too Young to be Old: Love, Learn, Work, and Play as You Age
By Nancy Schlossberg
As the Baby Boomer generation reaches retirement age, an unprecedented number of Americans will soon be 55 or older. More so than ever before, the question is on our minds: How do I age well?
In this accessible and upbeat guide, the author has an engaging take on positive aging.
Looking at the basic issues of aging – health, finances, and relationships – readers will learn to think about and develop a deliberate plan to age happily.
ABUSE
Healing the Scars of Childhood Abuse
By Gregory Lantz
The deep pain of childhood abuse–whether physical or emotional, whether a child was neglected or wished nothing more than to be left alone–doesn’t just go away.
There’s simply no just getting over it. Even if no physical scars remain as evidence of the victim’s suffering, the deep wounds on their minds, hearts, and souls are still there. But it is possible to become whole and happy.
No Visible Wounds
By Mary Susan Miller
Mary Susan Miller breaks the silence that surrounds this devastating form of domestic violence.
She identifies the many types of nonphysical abuse verbal, emotional, psychological, social, and economic–and explores why this outrageous treatment of women continues unabated in our society.
Outgrowing the Pain Together
By Eliana Gil
Outgrowing the Pain is an important book for any adult who was abused or neglected in childhood.
It’s a book of questions that can pinpoint and illuminate destructive patterns. The answers you discover can lead to a life filled with new insight, hope, and love.
Scared to Leave, Afraid to Stay: Paths from Family Violence to Safety
By Barry Goldstein
What is it like for a woman to leave the man who is abusing her? This book presents the stories of ten women as they fought the courts and their abusers to gain safety for themselves and their children.
The author demonstrates how courts handle divorce, custody, visitation, support, child abuse, marital property, orders of protection and crimes when domestic violence erupts. He also discusses the common tactics abusers use to maintain control over their partners.
Book Link: Scared to Leave, Afraid to Stay: Paths from Family Violence to Safety
The Verbally Abusive Relationship
By Patricia Evans
In two all-new chapters, Evans reveals the Outside Stresses driving the rise in verbal abuse – and shows you how you can mitigate the devastating effects on your relationships. She also outlines the Levels of Abuse that characterize this kind of behavior – from subtle, insidious put-downs that can erode your self-esteem to full-out tantrums of name-calling, screaming, and threatening that can escalate into physical abuse.
Drawing from hundreds of real situations, Evans offers strategies, sample scripts, and action plans designed to help you deal with the abuse – and the abuser.
Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
By Lundy Bancroft
He says he loves you. So… why does he do that?
You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:
• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
Book Link: Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Wounded Boys, Heroic Men
By Daniel Sonkin
Offers adult male victims of child abuse a procedure for facilitating the recovery process, and suggests ways to break the cycle of violence
GRIEF & LOSS
Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart
By Alan Wolfelt, PhD.
Explaining the important difference between grief and mourning, this book explores every mourner’s need to acknowledge death and embrace the pain of loss.
Think of your grief as a wilderness—a vast, inhospitable forest. In the wilderness of your grief, the touchstones are your trail markers. They are the signs that let you know you are on the right path. When you learn to identify and rely on the touchstones, you will find your way to hope and healing.
The Paradoxes of Mourning: Healing Your Grief with Three Forgotten Truth
By Alan Wolfelt, PhD.
When it comes to healing after the death of someone loved, our culture has it all wrong. We’re told to be strong when what we really need is to be vulnerable. We’re told to think positive when what we really need is to wallow in the pain. And we’re told to seek closure when what we really need is to welcome our natural and necessary grief.
This book seeks to dispel these misconceptions that we hold on to so tightly and help people everywhere mourn well so they can live fuller lives.
Book Link: The Paradoxes of Mourning: Healing Your Grief with Three Forgotten Truth
Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss
By Pat Schwiebert, Chuck DeKlyen, Taylor Bills (Illustrator)
Suitable for all ages
A modern-day fable told in a richly illustrated children’s book format. Tear Soup, a recipe for healing after loss, centers around an old and somewhat wise woman, Grandy. Grandy has just suffered a big loss in her life and so she is headed to the kitchen to make a special batch of Tear Soup.
There she chooses the size pot that is right for her loss, and she puts on her apron because she knows it’s going to be messy. Slowly the pot is filled with tears as the old woman steeps away. To season her soup Grandy adds memories like the good times and the bad times, the silly and the sad times. She does not want to forget even one precious memory of her loss.
KIDS & GRIEF
When Someone Dies: A Child-Caregiver Activity Book
By National Alliance for Grieving Children
This is an activity book for children that also provides valuable information to parents and caregivers about how grief impacts children. Contained within the pages of the book are activities for children designed to help them better express, understand, and cope with their grief.
Each page also offers guidance about how adults can connect with their child on the very difficult subjects of death, dying, and bereavement.
Book Link: Understanding Your Grief: When Someone Dies: A Child-Caregiver Activity Book
Badger’s Parting Gifts
By Susan Varley
Ages: 4 – 8 years
All the woodland creatures—Mole, Frog, Fox, and Rabbit—love old Badger, who is their confidante, advisor, and friend. When he dies, they are overwhelmed by their loss. Then they begin to remember and treasure the memories he left them.
Told simply, directly, and honestly, this uplifting story will be of tremendous value to both children and their parents. A gentle classic that can help foster communication, care, and understanding.
PARENTING
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child the Heart of Parenting
By John M. Gottman, PH.D.
Every parent knows the importance of equipping children with the intellectual skills they need to succeed in school and life. But children also need to master their emotions. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child is a guide to teaching children to understand and regulate their emotional world.
Once they master this important life skill, emotionally intelligent children will enjoy increased self-confidence, greater physical health, better performance in school, and healthier social relationships. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child will equip parents with a five-step “emotion coaching” process.
Book Link: Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child the Heart of Parenting
RELATIONSHIPS – MARRIAGE
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
By Gary Chapman
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?
The #1 New York Times bestseller, The 5 Love Languages, is practical and insightful.
Includes the Couple’s Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.
Book Link: The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
Getting the Love You Want
By Harvill Hendrix
- Discover why you chose your mate
- Resolve the power struggle that prevents greater intimacy
- Learn to listen – really listen – to your partner
- Increase fun and laughter in your relationship
- Begin healing early childhood experiences by stretching into new behaviors
- Become passionate friends with your partner
- Achieve a common vision of your dream relationship
Become the most connected couple you know with this revolutionary guide… it will help you and your partner recapture joy, enhance closeness, and experience the reward of a deeply fulfilling relationship.
Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy
By Frank Pittman
Using actual case studies, as well as examples from music, literature, and film, Dr. Pittman identifies four basic patterns of infidelity―the accidental encounter, habitual philandering, marital arrangements, and romance.
He discusses how to limit the damage that affairs do and offers practical suggestions on how to make a marriage work.
Book Link: Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy
The Relationship Cure
By John Gottman
Gottman provides the tools you need to make your relationships thrive. In The Relationship Cure, Dr. Gottman:
– Reveals the key elements of healthy relationships, emphasizing the importance of what he calls “emotional connection”
– Introduces the powerful new concept of the emotional “bid,” the fundamental unit of emotional connection
– Provides remarkably empowering tools for improving the way you bid for emotional connection and how you respond to others’ bids
– And more!
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert
By John M. Gottman, PH.D.
Gottman outlines the seven principles that guide couples on a path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Straightforward yet profound, these principles teach partners new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy.
This resource offers strategies and resources to help couples collaborate more effectively to resolve any problem, whether dealing with issues related to sex, money, religion, work, family, or anything else.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Boundaries
By Cloud & Townsend
Does your life feel like it’s out of control? Perhaps you feel like you have to say yes to everyone’s requests. Maybe you find yourself readily taking responsibility for others’ feelings and problems. Or perhaps you focus so much on being loving and unselfish that you’ve forgotten your own limits and limitations. Or maybe it’s all of the above.
This book will help you learn when to say “yes” and know how to say “no” in order to take control of your life and set healthy, boundaries with your spouse, children, friends, parents, co-workers, and even yourself.
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
By Brené Brown PhD, LMSW
“True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.”
Brown argues that we’re experiencing a spiritual crisis of disconnection and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other. She writes, “True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in being a part of something and in standing alone when necessary.
Book Link: Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
By Brené Brown PhD, LMSW
Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly.
Brown explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief, and disappointment, and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation, and creativity.
Honoring the Self
By Nathaniel Brandon
“Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem,” says pioneering psychologist Nathaniel Branden, “and I will tell you how that person operates at work, in love, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect of existence–and how high he or she is likely to rise.
The reputation you have with yourself–your self-esteem–is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.”
Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics
By Robert Ackerman
This book identifies what differentiates the adult daughters of alcoholics from other women.
Dr. Ackerman identified behavior patterns shared by daughters of alcoholics. Adult daughters of alcoholics—”perfect daughters” —operate from a base of harsh and limiting views of themselves and the world.
Having learned that they must function perfectly in order to avoid unpleasant situations, these women often assume responsibility for the failures of others.
This book offers readers an opportunity to explore their own life’s dynamics and thereby heal and grow.
